Posted on 22 September 2015

Tharman Shanmugaratnam has emerged as the new Prime Minister of Singapore.

This after Singaporeans from all walks of life, who organised their own Cabinet reshuffle as they wanted to have a say in the political process, chose Tharman Shanmugaratnam as their new premier.

One Singaporean, Zuo Zhong Li, said: “As an active citizenry involved in making informed political choices and as part of the 70 percent who voted for the incumbent, we deliberated for a while before coming to this decision — about 10 minutes in total.”

“We did not take lightly this responsibility of choosing Tharman Shanmugaratnam as prime minister, as it is critical for Singapore to be led in the next few years by a capable leader who knows what he is doing and is well-liked by the populace.”

Posted on 06 September 2015

The Elections Department (ELD) clarified on Sept. 3 that it is not illegal to use the face of a political party’s leader in the posters of a constituency they are not contesting in.

This after other opposition political parties took issue with seeing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s face placed all over Singapore on campaigning banners.

ELD pointed out: “Under the law, the face of the political party’s leader can be used in the posters for the candidates standing for that political party, since voters would be able to identify the political party leader with that political party. This has been the practice in past elections.”

Here are three thoughts Singaporeans have:

“If the PAP can do it, I’m surprised there was even this need for clarification as they are the law.”
— Zho Cheng Hu, 43-year-old civil servant

“I noticed this pattern where people from the Lee family like to have their face plastered everywhere in Singapore.”
— Pai Zhao, 61-year-old photographer

“PM Lee should contest in all 89 seats since he is so talented and Singaporeans wouldn’t have to pay the rest of the PAP MPs who are obviously lousy and untalented.”
— Qu Guo Hui, 18-year-old part-time model

Posted on 03 September 2015

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Sept. 1 that the opposition in parliament has put in a disappointing performance even though they were voted in to be a tiger in a chamber, but ended up being a “mouse in the House”.

PM Lee, the party’s secretary-general, said it was “very easy” to make fierce and rousing speeches at election rallies, where candidates can promise to do things if elected but none of those issues are raised when they come to Parliament.

Here are three thoughts Singaporeans have:

“If the opposition is a mouse, then East Coast GRC MP Raymond Lim was a dead mouse the last four years.”
— Ya Pah, 45-year-old speech therapist

“Having a few mice in parliament really helps break up the monotony of a room full of swines.”
— Zhu Ba Jie, 62-year-old butcher

Posted on 24 August 2015

Singaporeans from all walks of life, who took out a tissue and dabbed away at the tears from their eyes as they watched the National Day Rally 2015 on Aug. 23, 2015, said they will always remember Lee Kuan Yew even 50 years down the road.

However, they said they will have trouble remembering Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

This after the achievements of Lee Kuan Yew were trotted out again at the NDR and audiences were left flabbergasted at how a man could have achieved so much while his son barely scraped the surface.

One Singaporean, Mei Chu Xi, said: “I will always remember Lee Kuan Yew and his achievements even at SG100. If you asked me who Lee Hsien Loong is then, I will not be able to give you an answer because I will really don’t remember.”

Other Singaporeans said there is a silver lining even if Singaporeans said they will not be able to remember PM Lee Hsien Loong in the future.

Posted on 17 July 2015

ST’s 170th anniversary made possible by not unfairly biting the hand that feeds them.

Singaporeans from all walks of life, who still read The Straits Times as there are not other alternative English broadsheets around so they lan lan, agree with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech given at the ArtScience Museum.

This after PM Lee said at the celebration of the newspaper’s 170th anniversary on July 15, 2015, that ST must maintain its hallmark of credible, balanced and objective reporting.

One Singaporean, Tak Sin Boon, said there is no doubt that ST is fair and objective: “The Straits Times is always very balanced. They will only sing praises of the government and PAP and smear the opposition.”

“This is fair because ST should know better than to unfairly bite the hand that feeds them.”

Other Singaporeans said they are confident ST will continue to be objective in their reporting by providing Singaporeans with the full picture.

Another local, Kwa Poh Zhua, said: “ST will continue to probe stories that make Singapore and the government look good and establish all the facts in those instances are correct.”

“If they break away from this tradition and start doing investigative journalism and make the PAP and government look bad via exposés, then it will be very incredible as they have not done it before.”

“Then this is not very good as Lee Hsien Loong said ST is a ‘credible’ newspaper, not ‘incredible’ one.”

At press time, other Singaporeans said longevity is just a sign you have not been wiped out yet.

Posted on 14 July 2015

Singaporeans will be upset if the prime minister doesn’t apologise again.

Singaporeans from all walks of life, who are part of the politically-active citizenry, have come out to say that they cannot wait for General Election 2015 to kick off.

This after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revealed in parliament on July 13, 2015, that the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC), comprised of civil servants, was secretly formed two months ago, signalling that the GE will be starting very soon as gerrymandering is being carried out.

One Singaporean, Gao Zhen Zhi, said PM Lee’s reluctance to admit publicly that the EDRC had already been formed is understandable, as no one would want to highlight the fact that he would be apologising publicly very soon: “If I was PM Lee I would also not want to draw attention to it as election starting again means he will probably need to apologise for mistakes made the last four years.”

“So I am looking forward to this GE2015 as it is a good time to see PM Lee say sorry again during his lunchtime rally at Boat Quay next to UOB Plaza.”

“If he doesn’t apologise, Singaporeans would feel like something is amiss, as this must be a staple every election from GE2011 onward.”

Other Singaporeans said witnessing PAP politicians admit to the electorate that they had not done as well as expected and then pleading with voters to be given another chance at political office will always be a sight to behold.

Another local, Qu Tou Piao, said: “I enjoy seeing rallies where the PAP leaders address a crowd of a few hundred people. It is so demoralisng for them as they have always believed they are high and mighty and given some strong mandate to rule.”

Posted on 13 July 2015

Aljunied residents from all walks of life have thrown down the gauntlet ahead of the upcoming General Election expected to be held in September or October 2015.

They are challenging Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to leave his Ang Mo Kio GRC stronghold and form a GRC team to contest in Aljunied GRC to show that the incumbent party is sincere in winning back the only opposition-held group seats in Singapore.

One resident, Fan Dui Dang, who stays in the opposition ward, said: “Personally putting skin in the game would allow the prime minister to show with conviction that the PAP is sincere, keen and game to take back Aljunied GRC from the Workers’ Party, no matter what it takes.”

“Or else, any team PAP forms that does not have PM Lee’s presence will be understood to be a suicide squad to merely make up the numbers.”

However, other Aljunied residents said PM Lee himself contesting in the GRC against the WP will look gimmicky.

Another resident, Gao Zhen Zhi, said: “Therefore, PM Lee himself must contest the GRC with four other Cabinet ministers. That’s when they will look serious. Or else, it is an affront to politics and the spirit of servitude.”

“And I will feel they are not sincere enough and it is just lip service.”

Posted on 09 July 2015

Singaporeans from highly religious walks of life decided to do something nice for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Some 50,000 of them gathered at the Singapore Sports Hub on July 5, 2015, for the Jubilee Day of Prayer event to mark SG50 and pray for the country.

And at the same time, they allowed PM Lee to give a short speech in front of them.

According to those who were present to witness the occasion, they said they just wanted to let PM Lee experience for the first time what it is like speaking to a crowd comparable to those traditionally found at Workers’ Party rallies during election time.

Workers’ Party rallies usually draw between 100,000 to 110,0000 participants who show up voluntarily to an open field, rain or shine.

One Singaporean, Gao Zeng Zi, said every politician, especially one who runs a country, should experience what it is like to be speaking to a large crowd: “It has come to our attention that PM Lee never had a chance to address a crowd this big before. All the past PAP election rallies were poorly attended, probably 1,000 people or less.”

“We just hope to make SG50 a bit more special and memorable for him.”

“How big is the crowd during GE2015, will still be up to his party though.”

Posted on 06 July 2015

Singaporeans from all walks of life, particularly those with blogs or manage some online website but do not make much money from their Internet endeavours, are clapping their hands loudly as they shake their heads in amazement at the same time.

This after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong successfully unlocked the cash value of blog posts written about him by CPF blogger Roy Ngerng, that could potentially net him a figure anywhere between S$100,000 and S$250,000 or more.

Yong Dian Nao, a Singaporean online content producer, said: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think Internet content can be monetised or even be valuable, but yet, the prime minister has shown that it is not only entirely possible to make money online, it is possible to make a lot of money online from blog posts.”

“This flies in the face of the notion that badly written, incoherent and largely unintelligible Internet content is junk and valueless. Whoever said that must be eating his words now.”

Other Internet scribes said even though PM Lee’s approach of monetisation is unorthodox, it showed that there is a future for poorly-written web content as they can make big money and provide employment for related industries like law, the judiciary and national media outlets.

Shang Fa Ting, another website content maker, said: “A lot of companies and smart people have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to monetise all the web traffic and eyeballs but to no avail.”

“And here comes along PM Lee, who is not even a digital native, to figure out the road map for giving misguided and folly-ridden writing a premium.”

“I hope PM Lee’s approach to unlocking cash value in blog posts will go viral, for the lack of a better term, and it will be industry practice sooner than later, and this will allow others who write online to allow the monetisation of their content by other people.”

Posted on 31 May 2015

Reiterating how Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong needs to sit his security officers down one by one to have heart-to-heart chats with them, relationship counsellors said the recent revelation by the PM that he seriously believes a plot by a 19-year-old to kill him can actually be pulled off shows more can be done by those close to and tasked with protecting his mortal health to address his emotional insecurities.

“For the prime minister to come out openly to inform the public about his private concerns and rationalising that he believes a 19-year-old is capable of carrying out a plot to take his life,” Tan Gan Qing, a relationship counsellor said, “shows he is insecure and emotionally unfulfilled, besides letting his imagination run wild, and is looking to re-examine his relationship with his security officers because he doesn’t ‘feel’ them.”

“There is no doubt his team of security officers are the best in this country. Therefore, what he is saying is not that the team protecting him round the clock 24/7 can’t really take one for him and he is feeling a tad sad about that.”

Tan continued: “If we are really making the effort to listen to what he is trying to tell us, PM Lee is not fearing for his life. This is a man who is speaking from a place where he feels emotionally empty and he is not connecting on a psychic level with his staff.”

To mend this bond that has been broken, relationship counsellors said the prime minister should initiate casual dinners with his security personnel one-on-one to get to know them better after office hours and connect with them on more than one level.

And to feel that things have not taken an awkward turn, both parties should not treat each other like professionals round the clock, as this creates an extraordinarily cordial environment that serves as an inhibition to spontaneous gestures and small talk, besides prohibiting genuine displays of affection.

“A simple gesture such as asking about one’s family or if they are thinking of taking up baking or Zumba can really break the ice and make one person more comfortable in the other’s presence,” Tan explained.

“There’s no need to always chat about cerebral issues. Shoot the breeze and talk about nothing in particular.”

At press time, the prime minister is seen speaking to his security officers about his plan to take up computer coding again and launching more open source programmes once he is retired from politics, but sources familiar with the situation report that there is hardly any eye contact between him and his staffers as they find it hard to carry on a conversation about this obscurantist topic that is a bit hard to talk about.

One government spokesperson, Kong Chee Kim, has since come out to clarify this confusion about who exactly does your CPF money belong to: “Your CPF money can, in fact, be anything you imagine it to be.”

“If you think your CPF money belongs to you, then it belongs to you.”

“If you think the CPF money doesn’t belong to you, then it doesn’t belong to you but to someone else, as a collective pool of funds for everyone’s use or locked up as part of the state’s coffers that drives the economy as it is used to finance spending.”

“Actually, to tell you the truth, this is something almost all Singaporeans don’t realise: Ask not if the CPF money belongs to you or doesn’t belong to you. Ask whether you, as a Singaporean, belong to the CPF?”

Posted on 17 February 2015

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s life was saved on Monday, Feb. 16, 2015, after the 63-year-old leader received more than 50,000 Facebook Likes that were sent to him by concerned FB users who heard that he was undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.

Upon news breaking the day before on Sunday evening in the mainstream media that PM Lee would be due for surgery the next day, Facebook users organised themselves immediately by getting ready to hit the “Like” button any moment the prime minister uploads a statement or picture of himself on his Facebook page regarding his impending procedure in the hospital.

One Facebook user, Ai Pao Er, said he is just doing his bit to send Likes to PM Lee to help him overcome difficulties because he believes in effecting change through social media: “Facebook Likes have been used previously to overthrow governments in Middle East by giving power back to the people, alleviate flooded conditions overseas that were hit by typhoons, help boost the health of ailing Third World children and eradicating poverty in general.”

“Hence, I will not sit idly when I know I have the power to bring change to other people’s lives, like my prime minister’s, by giving him Facebook Likes.”

The Prime Minister’s Office responded with a statement following PM Lee’s successful surgery, saying he is grateful that Singaporeans are putting social media to positive use.

The PMO said the PM was grateful for the electronic affirmation and he pulled through as a result of all the precious Facebook Likes that were sent streaming his way, as any less than that amount received would have been critical: “Every precious Like can make a difference. If it weren’t for the more than 50,000 Facebook Likes, our dear prime minister — god forbid — might just have to rely on the power of medical science and surgery to pull through.”

Posted on 18 January 2015

They want to do that Oscars ceremony thing where they can act surprised at winning.

As speculation continues to proliferate in the media about who will be the next chief of Singapore, several PAP backbenchers have admitted it has always been a fantasy of theirs to be the prime minister even though they are hardly qualified.

One of the MPs who gave his name as Lam but didn’t want to reveal his full name, said: “Every time I hear PM Lee talk about succession plans and how the next prime minister might already be in parliament now, I secretly fantasise that he is talking about me and will be unveiling me as his protege to everyone’s surprise and chagrin when the time comes.”

“Like ‘Hey, I was here all along and you guys snubbed me because you thought I’d have amounted to nothing’.”

Another backbencher MP, who gave his name as Tong but didn’t want to reveal his full name, said he fantasises about how he would pick up a call one day from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who would inform him he is the top choice: “I know it is down to Heng Swee Keat and Chan Chun Sing. But one can hope against all hope it could be me.”

“That is one of my fantasies.”

“I imagine it like what you see during the Oscar ceremony where they are announcing the Best Actor and everyone is being cool and composed before the winner’s name is read and when you don’t get chosen you still have to keep a straight face.”

However, Singaporeans by-and-large said it is not hard to foretell who will be the next prime minister.

One local, Tng Lang, said: “By default, if you’re Chinese and you’re a man, you stand a better chance already.”

“You’d see the PM and the public talking about whether Heng Swee Keat or Chan Chun Sing would be the next prime minister, and everyone’s playing off these little rivalries.”